I hope this is the best place to post this tip.
I have been having some troubles with keeping my A-MAZE-N smoker lit and when it did stay lit, the smoke seemed to "Pool" along the top of the smoker and move up the exhaust pipe giving me uneven smoking when I was cold smoking. Hot smoking I had no problem with either.
I am also a Computer Geek and had some spare parts on hand and an idea sprang into my head. Why not mount a Computer Case fan in my smoker when cold smoking.
I took an old fan and a lantern battery and wired them together. I put my A-MAZE-N smoker in a deep aluminum tray for clean up ease. I put the fan on the rack on one side of the smoker facing the back and a little to the right to get a light convection air flow moving.
Not even 5 minutes later I was seeing a thin blue smoke come out of the pipe. Usually it takes about 10-15 minutes for me. I opened the lid and the entire chamber was filled with smoke. I checked every 20-30 minutes and kept seeing smoke coming from the pipe. I didn't open the lid for 4 hours until I needed to take out the cheese, but let it keep going for the Cold Smoked Salmon that was still in there. After another 5 hours, the smoke finally stopped and for the first time cold smoking, I had not had to relight the dust.
I have done this several times since and the only change I have made is I wired a switch so I can turn the fan on and off.
I believe my issues were more a lack of proper air flow in the smoker. Once the dust had enough air, it burned properly and the convection moved the air through the smoker to give an even smoke.
Not knowing what could happen to the Battery, I put it in a quart Zippy bag with the wires going out the top. The reason I went with a 6V Lantern Battery instead of 9V is because I didn't have any laying around. I am not sure if a standard 9V battery has enough amps to run the fan, but our mileage may very.
I have been having some troubles with keeping my A-MAZE-N smoker lit and when it did stay lit, the smoke seemed to "Pool" along the top of the smoker and move up the exhaust pipe giving me uneven smoking when I was cold smoking. Hot smoking I had no problem with either.
I am also a Computer Geek and had some spare parts on hand and an idea sprang into my head. Why not mount a Computer Case fan in my smoker when cold smoking.
I took an old fan and a lantern battery and wired them together. I put my A-MAZE-N smoker in a deep aluminum tray for clean up ease. I put the fan on the rack on one side of the smoker facing the back and a little to the right to get a light convection air flow moving.
Not even 5 minutes later I was seeing a thin blue smoke come out of the pipe. Usually it takes about 10-15 minutes for me. I opened the lid and the entire chamber was filled with smoke. I checked every 20-30 minutes and kept seeing smoke coming from the pipe. I didn't open the lid for 4 hours until I needed to take out the cheese, but let it keep going for the Cold Smoked Salmon that was still in there. After another 5 hours, the smoke finally stopped and for the first time cold smoking, I had not had to relight the dust.
I have done this several times since and the only change I have made is I wired a switch so I can turn the fan on and off.
I believe my issues were more a lack of proper air flow in the smoker. Once the dust had enough air, it burned properly and the convection moved the air through the smoker to give an even smoke.
Not knowing what could happen to the Battery, I put it in a quart Zippy bag with the wires going out the top. The reason I went with a 6V Lantern Battery instead of 9V is because I didn't have any laying around. I am not sure if a standard 9V battery has enough amps to run the fan, but our mileage may very.
